BEIRUT — Om Jamal crossed into Lebanon from her home in the Syrian village of Ain Al-Tennour, where forces loyal to dictator Bashar Assad ransacked homes and terrorized residents.

Her village is part of the region of Reef Qusayr, where people of different faiths have lived together since antiquity until Assad's campaign to crush an uprising turned the region into a bloody battleground. Villagers refuse to surrender, fathers bury sons hurriedly every day, and doctors struggle to save children sliced by shrapnel.